Indigenous Studies

A documentary heritage digitization project that will focus on increasing online access to LAC’s holdings that contain First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nation related content, including government records, private archival records, and published works.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) was created to preserve the memory of Canada’s Residential School system and legacy. Not just for a few years, but forever.

Officially opening in the summer of 2015, the NCTR will be the permanent home for all statements, documents, and other materials gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).

Reclaiming Power and Place: the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Website includes final report and other resources

the TRC Web Archive provides public access to a spectrum of voices from the web related to the commission itself and, more broadly, to the theme of reconciliation. These include official TRC and NCTR websites and related documents, blogs and personal sites on the residential school system, media articles, and sites with a community focus on survivors, commemoration, healing and reconciliation.

Government of Canada dept. website

Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) continues to renew the nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown, government-to-government relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Métis; modernize Government of Canada structures to enable Indigenous peoples to build capacity and support their vision of self-determination; and lead the Government of Canada's work in the North.

Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) works collaboratively with partners to improve access to high quality services for First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Our vision is to support and empower Indigenous peoples to independently deliver services and address the socio-economic conditions in their communities.

For background information on the development of this website see
Heavy Head, Adrienne Danielle, and Mary Greenshields. 2019. “Let Me Draw You a Map: Knowledge Management from ‘Two Completely Different Streams of Thought.’” Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship 4: 1–30. h t t p s: //d o i.o r g/10 .33 137/c j a l-r c b u.v4 .3 1 4 6 7
© Adrienne Danielle Heavy Head and Mary Greenshields, CC BY-NC

Although the endeavor to create a publicly accessible Blackfoot-centric library is recent, this project is ultimately the outcome of documentary work that began more than a century ago, and which elaborates on a knowledge base that emerged through a continuity of many thousands of years living in kitawahsinnoon.

The Blackfoot Digital Library is both indebted and dedicated to akaitapii - our ancestors who observed the radical changes being forced upon our communities in the context of colonization, and who took it upon themselves to record their knowledge for the benefit of future generations.

This is our opportunity to bring home the field notes, photographs, and recordings that have been spread all over the world; to respond to publications that have misinterpreted and misrepresented our experiences and our way of life.

The Blackfoot Digital Library is a venue for sharing our families and our communities stories, past and present. Most certainly it is intended to be an educational resource for all those now living in kitawahsinnoon

But above all, The Blackfoot Digital Library is meant to honor akaitapii, and their desire to speak through a variety of recording media to the grandchildren they never had a chance to meet, thereby ensuring that their knowledge is carried through to future generations.

Alberta government website with current information relating to First Nations and Metis

Aboriginal Multi-media Society publishes provincial and national newspapers.

National voice for communities in the Canadian Arctic

An information resource on key topics relating to the histories, politics, and cultures of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. This website was developed to support students in their studies, and to provide instructors, researchers and the broader public with a place to begin exploring topics that relate to Aboriginal peoples, cultures, and histories. Indigenous Foundations was developed by the First Nations Studies Program at the University of British Columbia, located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.

In 2017, Library and Archives Canada, as part of the National Heritage Digitization Strategy (NHDS), digitized titles to add to the national collection.
This pilot project was funded by the Salamander Foundation and relied on the generous support of the newspaper publishers.

Digitized issues
We are working on creating a database. Until it is available, you can access the newly digitized issues via direct links added on our website.
Read the Ha-Shilth-Sa newspaper digitized issues.

Read the Windspeaker newspaper digitized issues.

. Residential or day school attendance

Our reference services receive many requests related to attendance at residential or day schools. Most residential school records are in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development fonds (RG10/R216).

In Collection Search, type in various combinations of the following terms for a broad search: the name of the school, archival reference number RG10, and keywords such as pupil, student, nominal, attendance, admission or discharge.

Refine your search results using the tabs across the top of the results page or the filters in the left menu. For example, you can limit your results to Archives (unpublished materials) and a specific date range. The goal is to identify and compile a list of complete references for potentially relevant files.

For links to digitized records organized by school, refer to School Files Series—1879–1953.

Resource for information on western and northern Canada and the western USA

40 digital collections , some highlight Indigenous culture and history including Dene crafts

In his 2003 Massey lecture, award-winning author and scholar Thomas King looks at the breadth and depth of Native experience and imagination. Beginning with Native oral stories, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, in an effort to make sense of North America's relationship with its Aboriginal peoples.

Indigenous cinema : NFB collection

n her 2018 CBC Massey Lectures series, titled All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward, prize-winning journalist Tanya Talaga (author of Seven Fallen Feathers) explores the legacy of cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples.
For Talaga, that cultural genocide has led to a forced disconnection from land and language by Indigenous peoples. The need now, she says, is for Indigenous self-determination in social, cultural and political arenas.

While treaties between Indigenous peoples and the United States affect virtually every area in the USA, there is as yet no official list of all the treaties. The US National Archives holds 374 of the treaties, where they are known as the Ratified Indian Treaties. Here you can view them for the first time with key historic works that provide context to the agreements made and the histories of our shared lands.

This guide provides broad coverage of the Native American and Indigenous archival collections at the Library & Museum of the American Philosophical Society (APS). These materials date from 1553 to 2020 and include manuscript, audio, and visual materials relating to Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas.

NMAI Collections Search, which includes a representative sample of NMAI's object and historic photo collections. Each item is accompanied by basic, standardized information.

The American Indian Film Gallery (AIFG) is an online collection of more than 450 historic films by and about Native peoples of the Americas, compiled and digitized by historian J. Fred MacDonald over many years. These films range in date from 1925-2010. Most date to the so-called Golden Age of educational filmmaking, from 1945 to the rise of consumer-grade video equipment in the 1970s. Many of the films from that period were sponsored by industry or governmental agencies. Others were made by independent educational filmmakers.

"An internet resource for indigenous ethno-technology focusing on the arts of Eastern Woodland Indian Peoples, providing historical & contemporary background with instructional how-to's & references."

This page highlights Artstor content related to the experiences and cultural traditions of Native Americans, illustrated by historic and contemporary photographs of ceremonial scenes, architecture and landscapes, as well as studio portraits of individuals and tribal delegations. Artifacts of material culture such as baskets, textiles, tools, masks, and costumes and apparel are also available.